The only place to see an aurochs in nature these days? A cave painting. The enormous wild cattle that once roamed the European plains have been extinct since 1627, when the last survivor died in a Polish nature reserve.

But this could soon change thanks to the work of European preservationists who are hoping they can make the great beast walk again. If they succeed - through a combination of modern genetic expertise and old-fashioned breeding - it would be the first time an animal has been brought back from extinction and released into the wild.
The aurochs was a massive creature, standing more than six feet tall at the shoulder and weighing more than a ton. It had forward-facing horns and a white stripe running down its spine.
The prehistoric animal was domesticated about 8,000 years ago, but some aurochs also remained in the wild until the end of the Middle Ages, when scientists believe they became extinct due to overhunting and loss of habitat. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.)
The hope for its resurrection now lies in its tame descendants, domesticated cattle.
Here's how the process is expected to work: Scientists will first scour old aurochs bone and teeth fragments from museums in order to glean enough genetic material to be able to recreate its DNA.
Researchers will then compare the DNA to that of modern European cattle to determine which breeds still carry the creature's genes and create a selective-breeding program to reverse thousands of years of evolution. If everything goes as planned, each passing generation will more closely resemble the ancient aurochs.
“Everything will be put together in a genetic mosaic,” says Donato Matassino, head of the Consortium for Experimental Biotechnology in Italy and one of the scientists involved in the project.
“Once we have all the roads, we'll try to follow them back to Rome.”
Stichting Taurus, the Dutch preservationist group leading the project, is hoping a reborn aurochs could help restore the European countryside to a more natural state.
To that end, the group would eventually like to replace the domesticated cattle that currently graze in Holland's nature reserves with the recreated wild cattle.
“The aurochs was part of an ecosystem,” says Henri Kerkdijk, manager of the project.
“If you want to recreate the flora of the ecosystem, you also have to recreate the fauna.”
The idea came to Kerkdijk during a trip to Africa, where he was struck by the abundance of giant herbivores, even in areas where people were living.
“It just bothered me that we don't have that in Europe anymore,” he says.
His group has already introduced English Exmoor ponies - the closest living representatives of the wild horses painted alongside aurochs on cave walls - to the Netherlands' nature reserves.
“You could also talk about recreating the giant deer,” Kerkdijk says.
“But there, we don't have a modern animal to work from.”
(Source: Time.com)